By Michael Holden
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda videos seized by U.S. forcesshow Iraqi children younger than 11 carrying out mockkidnappings and attacks, the U.S. military and Iraqi officialssaid on Wednesday.
Videos played to media showed about 20 boys, mostly under11, wearing balaclavas and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles androcket-propelled grenade launchers almost as big as themselves.
"This is not the first time we've observed such materialbut the volume and content was the most significant anddisturbing we have found to date," said U.S. military spokesmanRear Admiral Gregory Smith.
Smith said the videos were meant to spread al Qaeda'smessage among the young rather than train the boys formissions.
Five videos of the children were seized during an operationagainst the Sunni Islamist militants in early December 2007.
Violence has fallen across Iraq, with attacks down 60percent since last June, but Smith said al Qaeda was still thegreatest threat to security in Iraq.
He said the U.S. military did not know exactly where orwhen the films were made, or how many children were involved.
The boys were seen stopping a man on a bike and taking himhostage, forcing passengers from a car and holding guns totheir heads, and practising assaults on houses as trainersshouted instructions.
MOVIE SCRIPT
Other seized pictures showed a young boy wearing a "suicidevest", while U.S. soldiers had also found a written proposalfor a movie script about training children for warfare.
"The script was to include children interrogating andexecuting victims, planting improvised explosive devices andconducting sniper attacks," Smith said, adding al Qaeda hadalso infiltrated schools to disseminate propaganda.
U.S. commanders say al Qaeda have been using differenttactics recently as security clampdowns have hampered theirability to carry out large-scale bomb attacks.
Smith said there had been two recent suicide bombings by15-year-old boys, while the number of attacks involving womenhad also increased.
Last week two women, said by the U.S. military and Iraqiofficials to be mentally impaired and duped by al Qaeda, blewthemselves up at popular pet markets, killing 99 people in thedeadliest attack in Baghdad for nine months.
U.S. and Iraqi forces this year have launched offensivesacross central and northern Iraq where al Qaeda has regroupedafter being forced from strongholds in western Iraq's Anbarprovince and around Baghdad in security crackdowns last year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a"decisive" push in northern Mosul to force al Qaeda fightersfrom their last urban stronghold in Iraq.
Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawisaid violence in January had plummeted compared with a yearago, when security forces were trying to stave off civil warbetween majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.
According to Moussawi's figures, 1,958 people were killedin Baghdad in January 2007 compared with 16 last month. Howeverfigures compiled by Reuters showed 27 civilians died violentlyin Baghdad in the last week of January 2008 alone.
Improving security was not the main reason why Iraqirefugees were returning home from Syria, where about 2 millionIraqis had fled to escape sectarian violence, a United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report said.
The report found 46.1 percent of a sample of 110 Iraqisinterviewed in Damascus said they could no longer afford tolive in Syria while 14.1 percent cited improved security.
(Additional reporting by Paul Tait and Waleed Ibrahim;Editing by Dominic Evans)
